Why RIA is good for you
Web 2.x Blog
- The rant of an evangelistic Web 2.0 technologist
Posted on March 11th, 2008 by Michael Loke
I have posted about RIAs (Rich Internet Application) in the past, and have actually used one myself in a real life development effort ( I created a issue tracking system using Adobe Flex and Ruby on Rails).
The topic resurfaced recently in a lunch meeting with Jay Jenkins (Jay, you need a blog so I can do a a href on you), BPM Practice Lead of Renewtek. Jay was describing how his company is currently experimenting and building the next-generation of interfaces for the various vendor platform using Adobe Flex and Air. The description was truly amazing.
Having toyed around with Adobe Flex before, I can see where RIA technologies will bring forward a consumer’s experience of a product. Below are a few benefits that I personally experienced when developing one of the said demo:-
1) RIA is truly easy to implement
Like the foundation of UI component-based modelling (such as Mozilla’s XUL and JSF component UI), RIA technologies such as Adobe Flex and OpenLazzlo are based on XML. Each XML component has a parent to child relationship.
The ease of implementation that brings rich result means : Shorter Time to Market for your products.
2) Gone are the clunkiness of Javascript, CSS and HTML
There’s only so much browser rendering can do with HTML, JavaScript and CSS. The core problem of this (and due to the different browser rendering technologies) is that you get unconsistent results across browsers, even with your same code. For instance, the XMLHttpRequest (the foundation of AJAX) is done differently on IE and Mozilla. At best, the animation attempted with such technologies are sub-par. Vector graphics is also super limited (if not possible) using such technologies.
With RIA, a runtime is normally installed as a plugin to the browser. The byte code compiled (such as Flash’s SWF) are then executed on these runtimes. These runtimes encapsulates all the rendering needs that a browser could not possibly deliver, and hence you have your life-like browser rendering experiences with technologies such as Microsoft SilverLight.
This translates to your : EASE of USE in your software products.
3) XML all the way
With XML being used in the internet as a standard these days for exchanging information, many applications have started exposing data in XML to the frontend UI layer. The bug tracker I wrote basically takes in a chunk of the XML threw upon it by the Ruby on Rails backend, and then renders the bug and issue tracking in the frontend in a table format.
Most RIA technologies such as Adobe Flex even allows object remoting using their Flex Data Services in certain cases.
What this means to the average developer: Allows flexibility in parsing information from the back-end.
So what does this means to the average user:
1) Easy to use web application
2) Rich content extending beyond those rendered by HTML, Javascript, CSS
3) Beautiful vector graphics processing (such as Silverlight) enhances your browsing experience
4) Applications that are not clunky
Having said all this, I am a full RIA supporter… now if only Adobe starts making their FDS (Flex Data Service) free,,,or at least more affordable……….
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Who is this author?
Hi, I am Michael and am also an IT Management Consultant working for a global Tier-1 management and technology consulting firm.
My interest lies in Business and IT, and how IT can be leveraged to solve business problems everyday to help the organization sustain competitive growth in the marketplace.
This blog is dedicated to topics relevant to my field of work as well as my interests in organizational issues such as Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Entrepreneurship, Innovation Management, Organizational Strategy and Blue Ocean Strategy.
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